Atiku rebukes Buhari over foreign loans, Nigeria’s rising debt POLITICS

Atiku Abubakar, former Peoples Democratic Party, PDP,
presidential candidate, has rebuked President Muhammadu
Buhari over the country’s rising debt profile.
Atiku, particularly questioned Buhari’s decision to borrow an
additional $29.6billion to finance infrastructure.
The former Vice President insisted that it was irresponsible
to borrow more money when the financial indicators are
flashing warning signs.
In an article he personally signed and issued on Tuesday,
Atiku said Nigeria was spending more money on debt
servicing than on capital projects.
The article reads in full below:
“The fact that Nigeria currently budgets more money for debt
servicing (₦2.7 trillion), than we do on capital expenditure
(₦2.4 trillion) is already an indicator that we have borrowed
more money than we can afford to borrow. And the thing is
that debt servicing is not debt repayment. Debt servicing just
means that we are paying the barest minimum allowable by
our creditors.
“And while spending 50% of our current revenue on debt
servicing, this administration wants to take further loans of
$29.6 billion! To say that this is irresponsible is itself an
understatement”, he wrote.
Atiku stated that Nigeria does not need to borrow as he
offered his campaign programme as panacea: he urges the
Buhari administration to re-engineer the NNPC and adopt
the NLNG model in its governance. The NNLG, a joint
venture, declares billions of dollars as profit every year, the
NNPC, he said, declares losses.
“The money the Muhammadu Buhari administration wants to
borrow to fund its Medium Term Expenditure Framework
(MTEF) could be acquired without sinking the nation into
further debt. All it requires is visionary leadership and
business acumen.
“In my economic blueprint, I said that rather than turn in
regular losses (which it has consistently been doing), the
best thing to do with the Nigerian National Petroleum
Corporation is to reform it. Of course, the administration’s
paid propagandists went into overdrive, accusing me of
planning to sell the NNPC to my friends. But just last week,
Saudi Arabia’s ARAMCO, the most profitable company in the
world, took that route and almost broke the global stock
market with the most successful initial IPOs in world history,
bar none. Ironically, Saudi Aramco raised $29.4 billion via
this IPO. Just the amount this administration wants to
borrow,” he wrote.
The opposition politician did not just limit his intervention to
a mere rebuke of the Buhari administration as he also
appealed to Nigerian youths to write their senators to reject
the loan.
He called the power cabal behind the Buhari administration
a ‘ravenous cabal’.
“I call on Nigeria’s youth to identify the Senator representing
their senatorial zones and write to them, urging them to
vote against this request. Do this, because it is you and your
children that will pay back these loans that would be
squandered by this ravenous cabal who do not have the
word enough in their vocabulary”.
Now read his full article;
John Quincy Adams once said “there are two ways to
conquer and enslave a nation. One is by the sword. The
other is by debt.” He may have very well been referring to
Nigeria of the last three years.
Barely two weeks ago, I warned during my Founder’s Day
lecture at the American University of Nigeria, Yola, that
Nigeria had taken almost as much foreign debt in the last
three years, as she had taken in the thirty years before 2015
combined. Now that is frightening. And very true.
Frightening, not just because of the amount, but because
after such unprecedented borrowing, we have emerged as
the world headquarters for extreme poverty and the global
capital for out of school children. It begs the question: what
were the funds used for?
I have said it time and again. The business of government is
too serious to be left in the hands of politicians. We must all
ask questions because if they throw away the future, it is not
going to be their future they are throwing away, it will be all
our futures.
The fact that Nigeria currently budgets more money for debt
servicing (₦2.7 trillion), than we do on capital expenditure
(₦2.4 trillion) is already an indicator that we have borrowed
more money than we can afford to borrow. And the thing is
that debt servicing is not debt repayment. Debt servicing just
means that we are paying the barest minimum allowable by
our creditors.
And while spending 50% of our current revenue on debt
servicing, this administration wants to take further loans of
$29.6 billion! To say that this is irresponsible is itself an
understatement.
The fact that Nigeria currently budgets more money for debt
servicing (₦2.7 trillion), than we do on capital expenditure
(₦2.4 trillion) is already an indicator that we have borrowed
more money than we can afford to borrow. And the thing is
that debt servicing is not debt repayment. Debt servicing just
means that we are paying the barest minimum allowable by
our creditors.
As a businessman, one of the very first things I learnt is that
you do not take loans except you are expanding your
business. Even as an individual, when your income cannot
fund your lifestyle, you are challenged to grow your income,
not your borrowings.
Even if this administration borrows $1 trillion, it will never be
enough because their challenge is one of capacity. They are
not using the funds they already have wisely. They do not
need more debt. They need more intellectual capacity.
The money the Muhammadu Buhari administration wants to
borrow to fund its Medium Term Expenditure Framework
(MTEF) could be acquired without sinking the nation into
further debt. All it requires is visionary leadership and
business acumen.
In my economic blueprint, I said that rather than turn in
regular losses (which it has consistently been doing), the
best thing to do with the Nigerian National Petroleum
Corporation is to reform it. Of course, the administration’s
paid propagandists went into overdrive, accusing me of
planning to sell the NNPC to my friends. But just last week,
Saudi Arabia’s ARAMCO, the most profitable company in the
world, took that route and almost broke the global stock
market with the most successful initial IPOs in world history,
bar none. Ironically, Saudi Aramco raised $29.4 billion via
this IPO. Just the amount this administration wants to
borrow.
Even if this administration borrows $1 trillion, it will never be
enough because their challenge is one of capacity. They are
not using the funds they already have wisely. They do not
need more debt. They need more intellectual capacity.
That could have been Nigeria’s story, but for our failure of
leadership. By reforming the NNPC, Nigeria can raise the
$29.6 billion the Buhari regime wants to borrow, and we will
raise the money without going into debt.
If we had taken that route, not only would we have attracted
Foreign Direct Investment into Nigeria, but even better than
investment, we would have attracted confidence in our
economy, because it would have shown that we have a
thinking leadership.
Take the example of the Nigeria Liquified Natural Gas
company. This is a joint venture between the Nigeria
government and the private sector. Yet, while the NLNG
declares very handsome profits, in billions of dollars every
year, the NNPC declares losses! This is proof that the NLNG
model works, and the NNPC model does not.
Moody’s, the world’s preeminent rating agency, has just
downgraded Nigeria. Ghana, a nation with only 15% of our
population, now attracts more Foreign Direct Investment
than Nigeria, and Rwanda, a country with less than 15% of
our mineral endowment, has an economy that is growing at
twice the rate of our economy. The problem is not revenue.
The challenge is not Nigerians. The issue is leadership.
Take the example of the Nigeria Liquified Natural Gas
company. This is a joint venture between the Nigeria
government and the private sector. Yet, while the NLNG
declares very handsome profits, in billions of dollars every
year, the NNPC declares losses! This is proof that the NLNG
model works, and the NNPC model does not.
While there is scant information in the Medium Term
Expenditure Framework for what the loan would be used for,
I could not help but read a communication from the
Presidency to the effect that one of such projects would be
the digitalisation of the Nigerian Television Authority and
other similar projects.
Spending revenue on such projects would be foolish, but
spending loans in such a manner is nothing short of
foolhardy. The Nigerian government does not have a good
record of running businesses, and a public television
network is unlikely to yield the type of income that would
justify taking out loans to digitalise it. Besides, is that a
priority, when we have 12 million children out of school?
Like I said, capacity, not revenue, is the problem.
And in proof of this, I offer the example of how this
administration took delivery of $322 million Abacha loot in
2018 and claimed it shared it out to poor Nigerians, only to
obtain a $328 million loan from China, allegedly for ICT
development the very next month. How do you share out
$322 million and then borrow $328 million? Who does that?
At the risk of repeating myself, it is clear that no amount of
money, whether from revenue or borrowings, will be enough
for an administration that lacks capacity.
So, what must Nigeria do now? Rather than profligate
borrowing, what Nigeria needs to do is restore investor
confidence in our economy. Key to that is respecting the
independence of key institutions, such as the Judiciary and
the Central Bank of Nigeria. Both of these institutions are
now the captives of Buhari and his cabal, and though they
are loathe to admit it, they cannot take one step without
watching their backs.
Why are foreign investors leaving Nigeria for Ghana? The
answer is that Ghana, unlike Nigeria, has learnt how to
divorce key institutions from politics. The Ghanaian central
bank enjoys a degree of independence that our own CBN
can only dream of under the prevailing atmosphere. You will
not hear Ghana’s leaders give flippant interviews overseas
about their plans for the cedi, as Buhari has done in Europe
about the Naira. It rang alarm bells because it is not the job
of the executive to interfere in the role of the reserve bank.
Neither will you find Ghana’s leaders blatantly intimidating
the judiciary by obviously setting up judges and invading
courtrooms. Why would any investor come to Nigeria under
such prevailing circumstances? Their thought would be that
if they had industrial disputes, our courts, under this
administration, could not be counted on to deliver impartial
justice.
I was part of a team that paid off Nigeria’s entire foreign
debt. I, therefore, cannot sit and watch an administration
without vision squander our children’s future by taking and
wasting loans that they do not even have the capacity to
utilise properly.
Thank God for leaked memos that have exposed the lies this
regime has told Nigerians about unprecedented revenues in
the Federal Inland Revenue Service and the Nigerian
National Petroleum Corporation. Now, we know that Nigeria
is not poor because she is not making enough money. The
truth is that Nigeria is poor because she is not making the
right leadership decisions.
Thomas Jefferson said, “to preserve our independence, we
must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt.” Dear
citizens of our beloved nation, this is a call to heed.
President Olusegun Obasanjo and I paid off this nation’s
debt, and I will not stand idly by and watch while Nigeria is
plunged into second slavery by those who only know how to
reap where they have not sown.
Our youth must have something better to inherit from us
than unsustainable debt fuelled by insatiable greed. That is
why I call on the Senate of the National Assembly to show
loyalty to Nigeria and reconsider its decision with regards to
approving Buhari’s $29.6 billion loan request.
We need to pay heed to Benjamin Franklin’s advise that “he
that goes a borrowing goes a sorrowing”. I call on Nigeria’s
youth to identify the Senator representing their senatorial
zones and write to them, urging them to vote against this
request. Do this, because it is you and your children that will
pay back these loans that would be squandered by this
ravenous cabal who do not have the word enough in their
vocabulary.